Warning Issued To Truants, Parents

TAVARES - Court and law enforcement officials are cracking down on children who skip school - and their parents.

A first batch of elementary school skippers, with moms and dads in tow, were hauled into court last week to hear a stern warning from officials: Go to school or face legal prosecution.

``There is a bottom line for parents,'' said John Carnahan, assistant state attorney. ``It is a crime to refuse to have your child attend school regularly.''

While officials say they don't want to prosecute parents, their crusade against truancy will be more than threats. Expect them to pursue school skippers - literally.

Sheriff George Knupp plans as early as next month to begin chasing truants. He will encourage local city police departments and even the Florida Highway Patrol to help his deputies sweep the county daily for children who are skipping school.

Children who are rounded up will be taken to a Truancy Center, which might be set up at the county jail. Then parents will be called and told to come and get their children and see that they go to school.

Leesburg police started picking up truants last fall and returned more than 100 to schools first semester.

Schools have been complaining about increasing truancy for several years. Courts and cops have taken notice.

The reason?

``Truants commit crimes,'' said Capt. Larry Chester with the Lake County Sheriff's Office.

On any given weekday, 10 percent or more of students are absent from school, officials say. The majority are skipping, they say.

That means each day 2,500 or more students may be wandering Lake County looking for something to do. Too often they get in trouble, Circuit Court Judge T. Michael Johnson said.

``Half the kids I see have been arrested for things they did while they should have been in school,'' said Johnson, who handles juvenile cases. Truancy often is a first step toward bigger crimes, too, Johnson and others said.

The teenagers accused last week in the stabbing death of Billy Austin Simpson Sr., an elderly Mount Dora widower, had histories of truancy.

As a first step to reduce truancy, Johnson last week called 35 Lake County elementary school pupils and their parents into his courtroom to hear him and other officials say why students should be in school and what can happen to them and their parents if they do not attend.

Parents received sharply worded letters from the State Attorney's Office asking them to the meeting, the first of planned monthly sessions. Only 13 students and their parents showed up, but officials said a few of the letters apparently were mailed late. About 50 students and their parents will be summoned to court each month for the lecture on school attendance.

The Truancy Intervention Partnership Program will concentrate on elementary school pupils who miss too much school. Young children are the focus because elementary school is where they pick up the bad habit of skipping school, officials said.

``Of the 35 students we asked to come to court, there are only two who missed less than three weeks of school the first semester,'' said Jay Marshall, supervisor of student services for Lake schools.

``There was one kid who missed 54 days out of the 90, and of the 36 days he was in school, he was tardy seven.''

Marshall is preparing an analysis of student absenteeism for the first semester of the school year, which ended before the Christmas holidays. He hopes to see improvement from last year.

Attendance was so bad last year that there was nowhere to go but up, school district officials said. Last year 22 percent of high school students missed 21 or more days of school, a red flag the state Department of Education uses to signal too much time out of class.

County figures also showed that 16 percent of middle school pupils and 10 percent of elementary school pupils went past the four-week mark for absences last year.

Several parents who showed up in Judge Johnson's courtroom Thursday evening said they had good reasons for keeping their children out of school. Officials were sympathetic, but pointed out that the children's education suffered nonetheless.

One woman, who asked not to be identified, said she and her daughter were stranded in West Virginia on a trip north to visit relatives when her car's transmission went out. ``I had to take a job waiting tables to get the $640 to get the car fixed,'' the woman said.

Meanwhile, her daughter, a fourth-grader in Lake County, was out of school - and truant.

Kim Kiss, who lives in rural Eustis, said her daughter missed days and days of kindergarten this year because of head lice. Students are not permitted to attend school when they have lice, and lice are a primary cause of absenteeism among young children, school social workers say.

``I am a single mom with five kids, and when they get head lice, it's expensive to cure,'' Kiss said.

Kiss said she shaves her boys' heads, but hesitates to cut her daughter Jennifer's blond locks. The girl has had repeat infections.

But Kiss said that officials are right when they say children who miss school get behind, and children who attend regularly get good grades and like school more. That was one message officials stressed with parents during the session with Judge Johnson.

``My 9-year-old son has been going to school regularly, and he made the honor roll,'' Kiss said.